The Unruly Immortals

At night in Niuxin Village, it was the Qingming Festival again.

People burning joss paper along the roadside came and went in an endless stream. Since most people in the village had migrated from elsewhere and had no ancestral graves to worship, they could only draw a circle by the roadside, leaving an opening toward the direction of their ancestral graves to burn paper.

The white smoke mingling with the faint moonlight made the whole Niuxin Village seem like an ethereal realm. A solitary red figure emerged from the white smoke.

That was Li Huowang, holding a lot of joss paper and many gold ingots in his hand.

He passed through the village and arrived at the gate of the Bai Family Courtyard, where no one else lived but him.

Li Huowang stood at the gate motionless, looking at the white gauze lantern and the yellow couplets on both sides, and suddenly chuckled silently.

"Hehe... Now I am really... A bright moon waxes and wanes, a few cold stars surround the remnant moon, lanterns hang high in front of the door, and within the household, empty sacks endure the passing seasons..."

As Li Huowang walked in, the door slammed shut. Li Huowang drew a circle on the ground, but each direction had an opening.

When Li Huowang tossed the joss paper and gold ingots into the circle and took out a fire starter to ignite them.

"Qingming... Come take the money... everyone come take the money!"

Li Huowang's hoarse voice echoed like a crow's wail in the lonely Bai Family Courtyard.

Li Huowang kept burning, incessantly burning, muttering what he wanted to say to his deceased relatives.

"Suisui, take whatever you want to buy with the money, if you want any toys and they don't have them down there, send your dad a dream, and dad will find a paper craftsman for you."

"Miaomiao, are you doing well down there? I miss you....."

As the joss paper continued to burn, the flames grew larger, and when the joss paper was half burnt, Li Huowang suddenly broke down.

He suddenly stood up, madly cursing his own shadow. "Ji Zai! You liar! You clearly promised me!! You said they could come back!! You clearly promised me, why!!"

The world remained, all evil spirits vanished, natural disasters were gone, and a day returned to sixteen hours. The world wasn't crazy anymore, everything went back to normal.

Li Huowang's goal to change the world had been achieved, but except for one thing: the dead did not return to life; the dead remained forever dead.

"All abnormal things have disappeared, so many difficult things have been accomplished, why can't you resurrect a few people, what are you worth!!"

Although he didn't want to admit it, Li Huowang actually knew deep down that resurrecting them went against the laws of heaven. Since the world wasn't crazy anymore, abnormal things would definitely not happen unless he made the world crazy again.

While cursing, Li Huowang slowly knelt on the ground, completely breaking down and crying out in anguish.

"Why!! Why!! Why is it me! Why am I the one left alive!!"

Despair came flooding in like a tide, pressing down on him like a mountain, so much that he couldn't breathe, feeling worse than death.

After a long while, Li Huowang reached for his torture tool bag under his robe, pulled out a dagger, and cut open his abdomen, tearing off the three layers of Xinsu skin and tossing them on the ground.

Then he pointed the dagger at his own neck, chopping down woodenly, cut after cut.

With a forceful tug, his whole head was ripped off, and he slammed it into the ground, but it was useless, Li Huowang did not die.

Since Ji Zai took everything from him in front of a mirror, he was no longer Xinsu, but he just couldn't die.

Li Huowang knew that he himself had become Ji Zai's Heart Pan, destined to become Ji Zai at the last moment. The world wasn't crazy anymore; everything about the future and past was predestined, and couldn't be changed.

But just as Li Huowang was in despair and breakdown, his acute hearing suddenly caught the sound of the stool he just set in place moving slightly.

Tear-streaked Li Huowang was stunned. He walked over and seemed to see something from the stool.

He approached, carefully reaching toward the unoccupied space above the stool, as if confirming something. "Is it you? Is it really you?"

Then, Li Huowang looked at the swirling burning joss paper on the ground and suddenly thought of something. He rushed into the house, opened an umbrella, and then bent over, looking toward the stool from beneath his crotch.

At that moment, Li Huowang seemed to see something, his expression began to shift from joyful excitement to ecstatic delight, and the despair and desire for death in his heart rapidly dissipated.

"Hahaha!! You all came! Wonderful! Don't go! Don't go reincarnate!! I know you have become ghosts, but it's okay, ghosts can cultivate immortality too! I'll go to the Astrological Bureau's Inner Treasury to find cultivation techniques for ghost cultivation for you!!"

"Hahaha!!" With his head placed back on his neck, Li Huowang laughed manically and dashed out of the Bai Family Courtyard.

"There are ghosts!! Hahaha, Ji Zai, I wronged you! Hahaha! Ghosts will do! Ghosts will do!! Hahaha!!"

When the commotion awoke Gouwa, who opened the door with his daughter, and saw the scene, he shook his head and sighed.

"Ah, after all these years, Brother Li is finally crazy."

"Dad, what happened to Uncle Li?"

"Nothing, just remember when you see Uncle Li later, don't laugh at him or curse him. If any kids in the village throw stones or spit at him, let me know. From now on, he's our village guardian."

"Dad, what is a village guardian?"

"A village guardian, my dear, is someone who wards off calamities for our village. It's because of the village guardian that we in Niuxin Village can live peacefully without illness or disaster."

After speaking, Gouwa was about to close the door and go back in, but suddenly saw a light at the edge of the village, though it was hard to see clearly due to the drifting smoke.

Soon, Gouwa saw Scholar Lv, holding his nephew Lv Tongsheng with one arm, running out excitedly from the white smoke.

When Scholar Lv saw Gouwa, his eyes lit up with joyous ecstasy, pointing toward the village's outer edge. "Gouwa! Come! Come look, Master has become immortal!"

A Tale of Weird Immortals (The End)